1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for securing reliability and authenticity of an operation log of an image reading apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Technologies for recording log information in an image reading apparatus used in a network system has been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H11-331469 discloses a technology for storing log information, such as a parameter for reading a document, a transmission parameter, and a destination of the transmission, and using the log information as required, so that operation efficiencies of re-using the same system, checking usage status, and performing a maintenance against a failure can be improved in the image reading apparatus in the network system. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-189054 discloses a technology for a method of managing a network scanner that can record log information and can reflect a reading mode that is frequently used by a user to the scanner as a default mode.
For a security enhancement independently promoted by each enterprise, a trusted computing group (TCG) as an industry organization of the enterprises that provide technologies for personal computer (PC) platforms contributes to develop and promote new hardware/software having higher reliability and security. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-317026 discloses a technology with which the TCG determines a specification of a trusted platform module (TPM) chip related to a security chip for a computing platform.
However, with the conventional technologies disclosed in above documents, usage information and log information can be fraudulently altered. Therefore, there still is a problem that reliability and credibility of the usage information and the log information cannot be secured.